Working for the Judicial Council and a pattern of racketeering activity

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.

The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing, closing a perceived loophole that allowed a person who instructed someone else to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because he did not actually commit the crime personally.

Burbank AOC Employees Tell Us:

I worked in the Burbank Yahoo building in the AOC before going to work for one of the vendors the AOC uses. They had two floors in that building. On one floor was dozens and dozens of CCMS “developers” that were spending all their time trying to look busy while producing nothing of value so that they could get away with bilking the AOC. They spent far more time working on their own companies requirements and paperwork than they ever did working on the CCMS program. If you ask me, significant billings were being generated so that those in charge could spread the wealth through kickbacks and keep the charade going.

The other side of the operations in that building weren’t much better. Instead of bidding out work to lower costs, they used a single preferred vendor who in turn, used their preferred vendors with each layer padding in profits ranging from 43-98% for their work because they had a willingly captive customer that did not care one shred about either costs or results. On top of these obscene profit margins were management fees imposed by the preferred vendor.

Someone really needs to look into the personal finances of those in charge of this program because while none of the facilities management administrators (those that work with the courts) would ever approve this obscene pricing, the managers in the program routinely did. They used what funding was available to address the needs of CAFM and judicial council darlings first (like appellate courts) while all but completely abandoning the needs of workers in lesser preferred courts. ( like all of LASC, Joshua Tree, etc) To keep everyone quiet they supplied brand new company cars, portable electronics and plowed them with 6 figure salaries and if you dared to raise a concern, you would be labeled a “potential whistleblower” and out on your tail as fast as they could process the paperwork. New Management isn’t any better – but they are better at containing the complaints since there are fewer of them.

The metropolitan courthouse’s downtown LA parking structure would be condemned if it didn’t belong to the courts. There are structure-wide cracks through which you can see the deck below and concrete falls on people and cars nearly every day.

Something that all court workers California should know and be aware of: Many of your buildings are laden with unsecured asbestos fibers that are blowing around unrestricted. Joshua Tree Courthouse readily comes to mind. So if you happen to develop mesothelioma in the coming years, you can thank the AOC.

A court employee in a bunny suit and mask and a case of aquanet hairspray would be far better off spraying above those tiles over their desk than doing nothing. (jcw- we DO NOT recommend this. While mostly true, asbestos fibers can be microscopic and invisible to the naked eye and disturbing them by moving ceiling tiles can cause them to go airborne. LEAVE THIS WORK TO PROFESSIONALS and insist that it be taken care of)

San Francisco and Sacramento Employees tell us about CAFM

About good old, recently ousted Jerry Pfab: He constantly had everyone in all day meetings and spent tens of millions of facilities maintenance dollars trying to chase a baby baldridge award. He also spent well over ten million dollars of facilities maintenance money on modifying a software program called CAFM. Equally complicit in this waste was the IT director Mark Dusman who not only signed off on these mods but also signed off on the colossal waste known as CCMS. Of course in grand AOC fashion, he was promoted rather than shown the door. (another report indicates he was recently demoted but that is not reflected on the AOC home page)

A consistent theme in these reports? Courts would be far better off hiring their own facilities management people than letting the AOC continue to hijack their funds and spend it imprudently and elsewhere.

Why are we arming people of questionable character without police powers, without the power to effect anything more than a citizens arrest? How could (former Pacifica Police Officer and ERS member) Nick Barsetti work for the AOC and teach classes on active shooters when he has been fired for tazing a man to death? Why are we supplying them with unmarked police cars complete with sirens, red and blue lights and police radios if they are not sworn officers? Why do they duplicate and augment CHP functions? Isn’t impersonating a police officer a criminal act?

Why are completely unqualified people constantly getting promoted?

What’s it like to work at the AOC? Same (illegal) shit but different names.

Whistleblower Protections – There are none

The legislature put in place whistleblower protections in a utterly unachievable form. What they need to do is go simulate going through the process they established and they will soon discover that a lot of the requirements they put in place rely on people doing tasks for which they completely disclaim jurisdiction over and will not do. As a result, whistleblowers stand no chance of progressing any case. To top it off, there were legislative discussions surrounding exempting “judicial council staff” (those that work with judges on the council) from those protections and the legislative history shows that the legislators agreed. So to drive the final nail into the whistleblower coffin once and for all, the Chief Justice renamed the AOC “judicial council staff” and even our supervisors and managers brag that whistleblower protections are dead.

Employee Morale Across the Entire AOC

To reference a euphemism or two, the morale across the entire AOC is that of a “Dead Man Walking” or a “Zombie Workforce”

Morale has utterly collapsed since Martin Hoshino took the job. It was bad before and it’s worse now. Nobody ever sees him or the managers he has hired. Their offices are always dark and they’re never around. The’re never seen in hallways or meeting with lower level staff. If management comes to meetings, the meetings are catered. If management does not come to the meeting, no catering is permitted.

Sacramento rents entire floors in buildings on Gateway Oaks Boulevard but half of the cubicles are empty because most of the new hires are assigned to San Francisco. All the work stays in Sacramento and does not get redistributed. You call that management?

There is more work than ever and there is more pressure to get that work done than ever before but it is the remaining Sac people that carry double, triple, quadruple workloads while San Francisco gets all the new hires. Staff keeps to themselves. There is no morale, no camaraderie. If you are not looking for another job somewhere else, you are just keeping your head down waiting until you are eligible to retire. If you complain, you’re a troublemaker and can expect to be escorted out if you do it more than once. New hires are looking for the nearest door within two months.

Nobody learns about staff departures anymore because JCW names the baddies and posts queen videos about “another one bites the dust” You could be working on a project for months via email and then one day, you call an in-person meeting and “Joe” doesn’t show up. Turns out that “Joe” left the AOC, ahem, excuse me, Judicial Council Staff over 3 months ago.

Oh, and everyone reads JCW. Everyone. Most especially managers, directors, the Chief Justice, and Martin Hoshino. People in Communications have regular strategy meetings to deal with the onslaught of legislative and judicial inquiries that invariably follow your every post. It truly is “Management by Blog” and whatever you do, don’t stop until these people pull their head out of their asses. You’ll know when that happens as you will have nothing to write about anymore.

Martin Hoshino knows that many current and former employees are mad as hell and will talk. He and legal services are doing everything they can to protect themselves from whistleblowers but you offer a medium that protects us. Long Live JCW!

Many people on the legal services team tell courts to do things that legal services would never do themselves. They constantly tell the courts to not treat their whistleblowers and people that bring up concerns any differently but when it comes to the AOC, treating them differently is all they do. They isolate them, don’t invite them to meetings, don’t include them in email threads etc, etc.

There’s been what can only be described as a mass exodus from the legal services team in the past few months, mostly over disillusionment over their role and how the AOC treats people in general. Believe it or not, if employees have legitimate grievances with supervisors or managers, they would encourage employees to take their complaints to HR. If there were enough of them over time, the manager or supervisor would eventually get the axe. But only after the employees who made the complaints got the axe first. It’s an unbelievable exercise in futility.They do everything they can to win your trust before completely abandoning you when you follow their instructions. No one should complain about anything. If you have a legitimate grievance in spite of so called “open door policies” where you are encouraged to raise concerns, find another job. Don’t complain, it will only get you fired.

Legal fees as gifts: In 2015 the legal services unit ran out of money in one of their budgets. Instead of moving money around to cover their costs, they went to two legal firms they paid the most (one with the initials WP&R and another with the initials of AA) and promised them future work if only they would lower their current billings. The one with the initials WP&R lowered the AOC’s legal bills by 37K and the other one lowered the AOC’s legal bills by 20K.

In case you haven’t heard, the AOC is spending another load of consulting money analyzing what each and every employee does in 15 minute increments. Yet employees are so poorly managed that managers are skewing the results making it look like they balanced the workload when they didn’t.

Violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, workers compensation laws and reasonable accommodations

One of the best ways of ending up in the unemployment line is to develop any disability. If that disability is caused by a work related injury, you will be ousted faster than if you develop a disability unrelated to your work.

Recently, an employee’s primary care doctor, working with a team of specialists and therapists, determined that this employee should work four-hour days while completing recovery process for a major head injury. After a few months of successfully performing ADA-accommodated part-time work (which the person had been doing for years), the person was called to HR and told that the accommodation would no longer be accepted. They were told to go home to complete recovery.

HR knew this employee was having issues getting LTD insurance covered and that the employee would leave with ZERO income. Possibly even more disastrous for the individual, no future ability to pay for incredibly expensive but necessary health insurance. Still, HR forced this employee to leave their work. They cancelled all insurances a few months later, with the final blow to come in June when they fired this person because they were not completely healthy and still unable to work without accommodation. I’m told that a new manager tried to pretend that there was no injury or accommodation in place for the person; and they actually attempted to completely modify this person’s job to something this person could not physically do.

Today, this person is not completely healed, is still not healthy enough to work full time and has lost virtually everything, including their home. They also still have no health insurance and have not seen a doctor in many months.

Get assaulted by your supervisor? Expect to lose your job.

There was an agency called the Judicial Council staff. This agency was made up of all the departments that you’d see in a regular business, but they did not have to manage to a bottom line like the private sector. They didn’t have responsibility to create revenue for the agency, so they had the ability to promote people into management who are not good supervisors/managers without much thought. It’s easy to see that some of the people promoted there would never make it in the private sector. Decisions at the Judicial Council are, for the most part, politically motivated and few decisions make sense to most staff at the time they are made. Strange decisions are rarely explained.

One teeny tiny department in the Judicial Council was made up of just seven people. There was a senior manager, manager, supervisor, administrative assistant, and three analysts. The supervisor, recently promoted, had the three analysts reporting to her. Unfortunately for the analysts, the supervisor was new to the role, had absolutely no people skills, and was a bully and abusive to her customers and staff. In fact, other department heads asked her senior manager that she not be allowed to interact with their staff due to her horrible attitude, rude and consistently condescending behavior.

One day the supervisor noticed two of the analysts working at a computer together. One had asked the other for help with a project she didn’t do often and had forgotten how to do. The rude supervisor approached the two analysts, angry that neither of them remembered had to the project. She pinned the analyst who was sitting at the computer against her desk, grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard—assault and battery for sure—injuring her shoulders.

The employee was physically in pain and very upset. The witness stood there in shock as to what just happened. The hurt employee had to see a doctor to deal with the pain and the shoulder injury. She reported the case to HR and did all things one would expect in a situation such as this, expecting that the situation would be fairly dealt with. It was not. The employee, who loved her job, asked her managers to be allowed to report to one of them, because she was now afraid of her supervisor. Since there was a senior manager, a manager, and a supervisor there was one manager on staff for each analyst, so there was no shortage of management to choose from. Unfortunately, her managers denied her request and she was forced to continue reporting the supervisor who had attacked her. HR investigated but did nothing to protect the employee, to no one’s surprise.

A few months later the employee was put on a Performance Improvement Plan for a random and fabricated issue. She was basically set up to be fired. They even made the mistake on the paperwork showing proof to the employee that they had just planned to fire her right after the assault incident. HR must have told them they couldn’t fire her immediately after the assault, and they had to build a case against her. (At least they did SOMETHING.)

What was the hurt employee guilty of, you ask? Probably for working too hard and having courts, judges and other external customers who were very happy with her work they wrote letters of praise to her senior manager. For that, she was abused, harassed, and eventually, (wrongfully) terminated.

And, you know what else? As it turns out, she had to ask the Judicial Council for ‘permission’ to sue them for assault and battery and wrongful termination. Crazy, right? Well, she asked … and they said no. Is anyone surprised??

Tune in to this website again soon for more surprising details about this crazy case. People need to know who the Judicial Council really is, and how they treat their employees.

A few days ago, we quietly celebrated our 6th anniversary of tracking one of the most corrupt institutions in state government.

Thanks goes out to our hundreds of subscribers and the thousands of readers from here in California, across the country and around the world.

A special thanks goes out to our numerous media partners, generous donors that keep jcw going as an ongoing concern and the good people in both the courts and the AOC who know that doing the right thing may be difficult, but it is still the right thing.

Now you’re cookin’! FYI, one does not have to be disabled to be discriminated against under ADA. If you ever spoke out on behalf of a discriminated against disabled branch employee and were retaliated against, you too are a victim of ADA violations.

The American with Disabilities Act, Title III-3.6000 Retaliation or coercion. “Individuals who exercise their rights under the ADA, OR ASSIST OTHERS in exercising their rights, are protected from retaliation. The prohibition against retaliation or coercion applies broadly to any individual or entity that seeks to prevent an individual from exercising his or her rights or to retaliate against him or her for having exercised those rights ..Any form of retaliation or coercion, including threats, intimidation, or interference is prohibited if it is intended to interfere”

May I also add that I always found it interesting that the very agency who is there to promote access, fairness, and justice is the biggest culprit of denying it to their very own employees. We have worked our asses off only to get kicked in the teeth.

On a side note, I also always found it interesting that Legal would always treat brand new employees really well. It was the long term emp of 10 yrs or more who were bullied.

Regarding our methodology: Except for the last two entries which were individually drafted cases of wrongdoing against loyal and conscientious employees that those people request be posted in their entirety, all of the remaining bullet points come from a collection of comments from 13 current or former AOC contacts that used the private message window and were merged together to make them indistinguishable. There were a whole lot more allegations than those listed above and frankly, if you want to keep on sending comments to the private message window, we will see what we can do about compiling more and adding to our post.

My main issue with this article is there is no mention of the Long Beach Courthouse and how the Judicial Council tried to get the legislature to pay for the 1.2 billion dollar Long Beach Courthouse on top of the 5 billion in new courthouse construction bonds the branch received from SB 1407 just a few years ago.

That crazy tactic by the Judicial Council and AOC “leaders” to get the other branches to pony up an additional 1.2 billion back fired really badly and is vital to undertand this story in full. The fall out was the Judicial Council had to cancel several courthouse construction projects statewide that they had over promised to county courts including a new courthouse for Sacramento. No mention of this politcal fiasco by the Judicial Council at all in the story and how their credibility is shot to hell now with the legislature as a result. What’s up with that Courthouse News? Do the judges in Sacramento who talked to this reporter not recall the recent history in CA Courts or did they just play along with a fluff piece hoping folks forgot all of this so they might get some funding?

Here is what the artilcle says, “Improvements to deteriorating state buildings have largely been put on hold because of the recession and Gov. Jerry Brown’s continued calls for fiscal constraint.” That’s total crap! The branch just received and spent a full $5 billion dollars for new courthouse construction statewide, during a recession I might add, and the branch got to manage all of that money. Such control of building construction by CA Courts is unlike all other state projects where the Department of General Serivces manages the construction of state buildings. So the Judicial Council by their own votes in recent years chose other courthouse construction projects ahead of the Sacramento Courthouse!!! Rember any this?

The Chief used to say no new taxes would be neeed for the new buidlings as they would all be paid for from fines and fees. They raised all those fines and fees by the way. They did so just in the last few years right before the Furguson riots which a US DOH report exposed how in Misssouri such fines and fees were used to fund the local courts at the expense of a mostly poor and black community. The US DOJ urged national reforms and this is when the Chief came up with her traffic amnesty fix as if she had no idea such fines and fees were harmful to the poor or minorities.

In reality her plan was just fines and fees from cases would pay the 5 billions in courhouse construction bonds off but those fines and fees are already drying up because the case filings are not there as projected by the AOC. Case filings are way down and will continue to fall I expect based on the trend lines for the branch.

It is always, and I mean always, we need more money from the Chief Justice and her Judicial Council of yes people. They never say, “Well we did screw up big time by over spending on the Long Beach Courthouse project and CCMS projects so we sort of deserve to be in this spot of wanting funding now because of mismangement of public funds on our part in the past.”

If I was in the legislature I would not give these same people more money especially since statewide caseloads are down nearly 30% in the last few years. The JC still has the exact same culture of the Chief Justice surrounded by a bunch of yes people she alone appoints to be on the JC. That same culture was railed on in two audits and it was that culture that resulted in CCMS failing and the forced resignation of Bill Vickrey as Director of the AOC. Do you know the Chief still gives out an award each year in his name for excellence in Court Administration? It’s a crazy mixed message on her part but I tell you the honest truth!

I feel if the Chief wants to run the branch from the top down then she should at least have the JC open up to dissenting ideas from within the branch like the ACJ’s so debates can occur on policy issues. Instead the message is all controlled by the Chief alone to have it only her way on every single issue. That style is undemocratic, corrupting, very dull, and also just does not work well as audit after audit has shown.

I honestly believe CA Courts are in a real mess now from forces outside the branch they will not be able to keep up with. The caseload base is eroding so badly that new leadership at the top in the AOC is needed for those in place failed to see this coming and the data has shown it for years now. Meanwhile they sit in their expensive digs in San Francisco which both the SEC Report and State Auditor suggested be moved to Sacramento to save some cash as if nothing is happening to their organization. Like a sand caste on the beach about to be crushed by a changing tide is how I see this filing situation for CA Courts. As usual when the calls to move the AOC headquarters came in the Chief rejected those fiscally prudent ideas from judges on the SEC Committee in favor of her usual mantra of “more money” and we like it here in expensive San Francisco. Who doesn’t especially on the public’s dime?

Now she’s hoping her friend from law school Darrell Steinberg the former CA State Senate leader and newly elected mayor of Sacramento can lobby to get the money for a new courthouse in Sacramento. It’s just a small $400-500 million in state funds for one building. With declining caseloads and a frugal Governor it’s hard to get the legislature to fund such a building especially since the fines and fees on criminal cases are not there to pay back bonds. They are screwed by the basic logic of math. More accurately for this story Sacramento Superior Court is screwed and the Chief is secretly OK with it. She’d rather the local court go without and plea for more money than cut her AOC and make them relocate to cheaper real estate to help out. She won’t do it.

Lastly, the local population in Sacramento just built a new sports arena for the Kings basketball team and the cost was about $500 million. To pay for a new arena all of the parking rates have gone up dramatically downtown for miles around that building. So on top of that very recent and very large downtown development project there is no local appetite to pay for a new courthouse at all. Also the new mayor wants to get a much bigger convention center built, a redone community theatre, and seeks to develop the rail yards project with a professional soccer team and new stadium. Something is going to have to give with all these big plans which all require public funding to make a reality. My bet is it will be this new courthouse that is left undone. Thanks for reading my take on this CCN story today. Fight On!

Isn’t this the same Darrell Steinberg who used to sit/chair the Ca Senate Judiciary Committee?

“I feel the confinement here…to do this sort of justice every day,” [Darrell] Steinberg said finally. Sacramento Superior Court officials took their case for a new courthouse to the city’s mayor-elect and other local officials Tuesday and continued to push for funding for a courthouse to replace a building long viewed as overcrowded, obsolete and unsafe.”

I think many were astonished that the judicial council would attempt to use term limits to attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the legislature and try to push off Long Beach rental payments off on the legislature when it was something that they clearly never agreed to paying for. Unfortunately, the interest on this project is double what bond payment interest would have been. Since maintenance, operations and construction was folded in, this in effect eliminated a large portion of the courthouse construction budget and used it for unintended purposes.

It goes a really long way in demonstrating that there is a severe conflict of interest in having the judicial council manage courthouse construction, along with the periodic reordering of the courthouse construction priorities list. An example of this that really needs an explanation is why east contra costa courthouse was so far down on the needs list that that there was never a budget to build it. But it suddenly jumped way up on the list to be one of the first courthouses built. The same holds true with appellate courthouses that were never on the list. (it was a trial court facilities list, not an appellate courthouse list)

This was all utterly dishonest – and there was a smoking gun to that effect and I think the legislature is paying far more attention to Judicial Council requests because of it.

Worse, there were billions of dollars in American Reinvestment & Recovery Act funding left on the table that the AOC clearly knew about that would have assisted (and matched funds or better) for ALL the projects. Numerous people, myself included, even together in large teams went from office to office pointing this all out and they just didn’t want the money.

In retrospect, they left it on the table because they didn’t want a shred of federal scrutiny.

Ladies and gentlemen, please break out your wallets and join us in rebuilding Hopewell Baptist Church in Greenville, Ms. The goal was to raise 10K and has been exceeded – but the damage is well in excess of 200K. We’re better than this so if you can only afford $5.00 please take a moment to donate. Thanks!

Why are a bunch of heathen atheists from JCW wanting you to contribute to rebuild a baptist church? We think the link is self-explanatory when you look at the picture.

The goal was a mere $10,000.00 and because of an outpouring of support from people around the world like yourself the day ended with $142,533.00 in donations and you didn’t send the boss to the poorhouse. (darn!) Thanks for your support.

As JCW quietly observes its 6 year anniversary, I humbly offer the following observations:

Before JCW, there was the AOC Watcher, which first appeared in 2009. At least 5 years before that, the beginning of 2004, if not earlier, the serious problems within Judicial Branch Administration and the Administrative Office of the Courts, including the massive cost over-runs and un-viability of CCMS, and the diversion of court funds to mask those over-runs, were not only well known within the branch but had also reported externally to various members of the State Legislature.

The uniform response from the members of the State Legislature was denial and disbelief; at least one person who took this risk of reporting these matters to the State Legislature was pointedly told they were lying, asked if they were a paranoid schizophrenic or on medication, and told to get psychiatric help.

In the wake of this information, the State Legislature did nothing, but the internal carnage at the AOC began to pile up. Then, in 2006, the embezzlement happened with the AOC’s HR Division. One of those directly involved in this embezzlement was the AOC’s HR Director, Ernesto “Bluto” Fuentes, who came to AOC with his own dirty history of public fraud, and then picked up right where he left off when he exited the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit district, along with the help of several of his chosen AOC cohorts, and the full blessing of Darth Vickrey as well as then Chief Justice Ronald George.

Once again, the embezzlement in AOC’s HR Division was reported externally to various members of the State Legislature, as well as outside law enforcement agencies, this time with hard evidence documenting the embezzlement, as well as those involved within the AOC.

The response from the members of the State Legislature was again denial and disbelief. One senior staff counsel to a State Senator, unable to refute the provided documentation substantiating the embezzlement, advised contacting the California Office of the Attorney General, which the person did. The Office of the Attorney General sent back a signed letter stating their office had “no jurisdiction” over unlawful activities taking place within the California Judicial Branch and recommending submitting the provided information to the AOC’s Administrative Director, William Vickrey, and the AOC’s HR Director, Ernesto Fuentes – 2 names that were all over the documentation substantiating the embezzlement.

The State Legislature again did nothing, as did law enforcement. Internally, however, Fuentes and the others involved in AOC administration were given raises and promotions, or otherwise rewarded for their misconduct and quietly hushed up. For any remaining within the AOC who evidenced even the slightest ethical or moral compass, the carnage turned into an outright slaughter in an effort to cover up not only the embezzlement, but other unlawful activities taking place within the AOC.

But then some things happened that the AOC and Branch administration, in particular Ron George and Bill Vickrey, couldn’t control: (1) judges began contacting members of the State Legislature, initially about CCMS, but then about disturbing activities within judicial branch administration as well, and the State Legislature couldn’t simply dismiss them as crazy, (2) the AOC Watcher started reporting on branch activities, and (3) in September 2009, the Alliance of California Judges was formed. In 2010, JCW appeared as the successor to the AOC Watcher for reporting on branch activities, which brings us back again to the 6 year anniversary of JCW.

In the intervening 12 years from at least 2004 to the present, other than some name changes outside of some office doors, nothing has materially changed at 455 Golden Gate Avenue, expect this, and only this: anyone who works there that has more than two active brain cells knows with unquestionable certainty, don’t report anything. If you do, you should seriously consider going home and killing yourself, because it will be a far quicker and far less painful death than the viscous punishment and certain torture you will receive from the AOC/Judicial Council Staff for telling the truth.

All of the same behaviors, misconduct, ethical violations, and illegal activities that have been so well documented over the past 7 years by the AOC Watcher and JCW continue unabated to this very day. Ok, well, CCMS is dead. Or is it? Branch administration is misleading, if not outright lying, to the State Legislature, massive amounts of public money are still unaccounted for and are still being misappropriated, there is still double invoicing on vendor contracts, there are still ghost employees, there are still unexplained diversion of funds from various court accounts, it’s still common to hear staff referred to by racial slurs by management and administration, the list goes on and on.

As but one example, in a strategy meeting regarding the release of the most recent judicial branch/ AOC audit, during a discussion of how to “spin” the audit findings, one senior AOC/Judicial Staff administrator stated what the branch really needed “was a 9-11 event” to deflect attention away from the branch and on to “something else.” And no, the statement wasn’t made in jest; the person was completely serious. And it is an accurate reflection of the defective and perverse attitude and mind-set of branch administration. It is also why, to this day, the real motto of Judicial Branch administration remains “We can do what we want, because there is no one to stop us.” And why? Because it’s true.

Because the other thing that hasn’t changed in the past 12 years, to this very day, is that no one, absolutely no, with any authority to do anything about any of this has done anything, and has refused to do anything, on purpose. In the wake of all the information that has come forward since 2009, I have personally asked several members of the State Legislature or their senior staff many times why nothing is being done to address the very serious public malfeasance and misconduct issues taking place within judicial branch administration, only to have each and every one of them finally admit to me that the State Legislature “won’t touch the judges.”

No matter how egregious, atrocious, disgraceful, and unlawful the conduct of branch administration has been and continues to be, it pales in comparison to the intentional and purposeful failure of the State Legislature and every other enforcement agency to anything about any of it. Despite being fully informed, despite numerous audits, despite it all, uniformly each and every one of them has willfully turned a blind eye to all of it, or run away as fast as they can in the opposite direction, and watched in indifference as those who have come forward have been brutally punished for telling the truth. They have allowed it to happen.

And it is this, more than anything else, that has personally caused me to completely and irrevocably lose all confidence and trust in the entire legal system, from law enforcement on up, all the way to the Office of the Chief Justice. At this point, even if I was a witness to a murder, I wouldn’t report it, because I know, from personal experience, it would likely result in my being punished for telling the truth, which I will not permit to happen. Better to just not get involved.

It took 10 years for the Cash For Kids fraud involving several Pennsylvania judges to come to the attention of the general public. Then, when the fraud was exposed in the media and couldn’t be denied, numerous Pennsylvania officials threw up their hands in shock and amazement, all claiming they had no idea any of this was going on. The subsequent investigations, however, revealed that more than a few of them did know, and did nothing. As a consequence, the fraud went on for years and years, and the lives of thousands of kids were adversely affected, perhaps forever, as a result. Public officials who knew what was going on did nothing, and allowed it to happen.

Just as public officials here in California have known for quite some time about the very serious problems in judicial branch administration have done nothing, and continue to allow it to happen. Quite some time ago I accepted the fact that someone is probably going to have to die before any one will do anything about any of it. Several people at the AOC have talked about the workplace shooting at Caltrans several years ago, and the more recent workplace shooting at the State building in San Bernardino, and of bringing a weapon into 455 Golden Gate Avenue and opening fire. It won’t surprise me if it happens. And If and when it does, we will all likely see numerous public officials, including law enforcement and members of the State Legislature, throwing up their hands in shock and amazement, all claiming they had no idea what was going on in the administration of the California Judicial Branch.

But many of them do know, and they have allowed it to continue. On purpose.

“This also holds true in the many states where judges have been indicted: In every case it was the feds who acted and it was the state legislators who feigned surprise.”

Correct – because the federal authorities were asked by the respective states, “or, more specifically, “requested the assistance of”, the FBI, or the U.S. Dept. of Justice, to intervene, usually through a State’s respective office of the Attorney General.

So some one please let me know when, if ever, any State public official here in California, and in particular the California Office of the Attorney General, has requested the assistance of either the FBI or the U.S. Dept. of Justice to investigate the “problem” in the administration of the California Judicial Branch. Because I am reasonably certain pigs will fly and hell will freeze over – at the same time — before that ever happens.

I, took, have heard this “it’s a federal problem” response from State legislators, and when I have then asked the above question, i.e., if it’s a “federal problem”, then when is the State going to request the assistance .of the federal authorities? So which they can only mumble the same lame-ass response of “we won’t touch the judges.”

Someone has died. Fact: hundreds if not thousands have. I showed the clear and convincing evidence of a ten year pattern of organized crime in the Ca courts causing/abetting it. Thus far the USDOJ will not prosecute. http://freepdfhosting.com/e2fb5e776a.pdf

Guess which key branch positions that I informed the DOJ these justices were sitting in at the time of their initial involvements in the debacle.

DOJ knows I’m not going away until they prosecute. Too many lives remain at stake and their failure to act is consent.

Does this seem somewhat odd to you all? U.S. Dem political leaders now seem to be on a public-faced kick of “we should have listened to the people”. But when you call their offices explaining problems caused b/c they didn’t, they say “We’ll get back to ya.”

You think that now Cal AG Kamala is a Dem U.S. Senator, she’s gonna jump right on solving those RICO problems in her home state — adversely impacting people in many states?

It’s reminding me of all the times the JC/AOC have publicly promised they would do a better job after audits spotlighted their “errors”, but have never really changed their spots.

Okay, I’m typically one to hold back what I really think (NOT). But this is what it looks like to me. Ya know all those protesters filling California streets who want Clinton over Trump?

They look to me like people who just want to continue getting screwed by RICO in California courts on behalf of cronies — rather than by RICO on behalf of cronies.

They don’t look like they are protesting for gov’t accountability to me b/c it wasn’t there b/f the election and it’s not going to be there after — unless criminals in the largest judicial system in the United States, the CA courts, start being prosecuted.

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — California’s trial courts need to adjust their expectations as they switch to Tyler Technologies’ new case management software, the judiciary’s head technology officer said Monday. Speaking at a Judicial Council Technology Committee meeting, Robert Oyung, who started last week as the council’s director of information technology, said that courts already have reported 52 major issues with the new platform.

The issues lie mostly with general functionality, interfacing with the Department of Motor Vehicles or implementing specific case types. For example, Alameda County Superior Court has reported problems with clerks trying to enter data into the new system, which it attributes to an unwieldy interface.

The East Bay Times reported this month that three clients of the Public Defender’s Office spent an extra 50 days in jail because judicial orders did not show up in the new Odyssey system. Public Defender Brendon Woods went so far as to ask the court’s supervising judges to stop using Odyssey. “The main themes in terms of where people are having issues after going live with the product is challenges in working with minute orders, manual data entry, user navigation and some client errors,” Oyung said at the meeting.

“We have 26 courts who have been on their case management systems for 10, 15, sometimes 25 years. They’ve had an opportunity to mature their product, enhance their product, make it do exactly what they want. So when they go to a new platform, although it’s a mature product off the shelf, it hasn’t been customized and tuned to a local environment. So there definitely will be gaps in a functionality that a court has experienced over the past 10 or 15 years compared to the new product.” Oyung said courts have joined together to tackle some of the bugs and larger problems with Tyler’s Odyssey case management system. They call themselves the California Tyler User Group. Courts using Odyssey for at least one case type are Alameda, Alpine, Butte, Calaveras, Fresno, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Merced, Monterey, Napa, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Sutter, Tehama and Yuba counties. Glenn, Lassen and Stanislaus counties have purchased Odyssey, but haven’t installed it yet. California has 58 counties. “There are some issues that courts have been having from either a product perspective or an implementation perspective, and we felt that this is a way for the courts to get together to help troubleshoot those issues, and have the vendor involved to be able to work as a community to help resolve those issues,” Oyung said.

“The whole idea is for us to work together as a community to resolve our issues, raise enhancement opportunities to Tyler, and work in partnership as a community to get the most out of the product.” Major areas of concern are criminal and traffic cases, so the user group hosted a summit in March to raise their issues with Tyler. Since then, Tyler claims to have resolved a little over half of the user problems with criminal cases and six of the 23 problems with traffic. Oyung said the user group created a committee of court clerks and information officers to meet with Tyler executives regularly, with its first meeting set for later this month. Rick Feldstein, head clerk in Napa County Superior Court, said his court has been slowly adjusting to the new software over the last couple of years. “It’s as if you lived in a house for 20 years and it’s exactly the way you want it, but you bought a new house now. You couldn’t afford, or it wasn’t feasible to design your own custom-built house, so you bought a tract home, and once you move in you’re going to find the furniture may not fit right in all cases, and it’s going to take a little time to get it all cozied up the way you got your old house after 20 years,” he said.

“But that’s just part of the process, and it would have been the case with any system we would have purchased off the shelf.” Tyler Technologies’ Odyssey software leapt to the head of the pack of software vendors vying for lucrative California contracts after the collapse of a $500 million statewide project to develop a software system for all California’s 58 trial courts. Widely savaged by judges as a “fiasco” and a “boondoggle,” the Judicial Council in 2012 abandoned the Court Case Management System developed by Deloitte Consulting, and courts began to purchase off-the-shelf systems like Odyssey. Court technology officers banded together,
independent of the Judicial Council, to try to make that software workable for their courts.

Oyung was among the leaders of that effort as the former chief information officer for Santa Clara County. He said Monday that courts will have “growing pains” with Odyssey, and that should not expect it to work perfectly from the start. “I think if people’s expectations are set appropriately — that there will be gaps and they’re not going to get exactly what they had before — I think that people can go in with open eyes,” he said.

“There have been a couple of situations where courts have not realized that gap upfront, so they have been very disappointed in what they have seen. But I think that we can work together as a community and work very closely with Tyler to resolve those issues.”

Alameda County Public Defender seeks judicial action over court snafus Public defender wants court to make accurate records, or stop using problematic case management software.

“Everyone should be concerned about this. People are being illegally arrested and it has got to stop,” Woods said.

OAKLAND — The Alameda County Public Defender’s Office on Tuesday filed dozens of motions to compel the Superior Court to take accurate record of court proceedings or stop using a new case management system that’s caused an unknown number of unlawful arrests and imprisonments.

Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods Malaika Fraley/Staff
“The court is turning a blind eye to injustices that are occurring every day,” Public Defender Brendon Woods said in court Tuesday. “We can’t let this go on without addressing it immediately.”

I agree Kamala has not been very involved in trying to reform the CA Courts culture but this story out today was to her credit on trying to stop the pimping out of minors online. A Sacramento Superior Court Judge said the web page was protected under Federal Law. This story made national news today:

Max, I have a hard time giving Harris a pass. I never understood why she was prosecuting that case. Even if the allegations were true, it always seems to me that it was an illicit interstate enterprise — federal RICO.

According to the LA Times, “The case is the most vigorous effort yet to blunt Backpage, which was founded in 2004 and is now owned by a Dutch company that lists Ferrer as its sole partner. Such a prosecution gives Harris’ office national attention as she heads into the final month of her race against Rep. Loretta Sanchez, also a Democrat, from Orange County.”

Lacey & Larkins owned Village Voice Media LLC until 2012. They were headquartered in Phoenix. VVM owns 13 alternative weekly, including LA Weekly and Observers. They sold it to employees.

My primary concern with Harris, is that she would never prosecute those involved in gov’t crimes — we all know that she got LOTS of complaints about the courts and DAs. Instead, she spent a ton of tax dollars defending gov’t backed crimes.

Most of the article is just fun stories from the Chief Justices (not very political). However, at the end is my favorite quote by the current Chief Justice which I do consider to be political. She says:

“Of course it’s always about funding, but it’s also always about the use of the funding and is it the best use, and it’s always about can we find a more efficient use to balance with due process. And of course, there’s also the oversight and reporting to the Legislature about the change. In many ways, it’s trying to walk a tightrope of providing justice, providing access, and reporting it and doing it on an ever-shrinking budget.”

Is she sure about doing “it” on a “ever-shrinking budget”? As far as I can tell the CA Courts budget has gone up by over $500 million dollars in the past few years yet the caseload for the state courts has gone down 30% for that exact same period. I get that her yes people on the Judicial Council just play along and agree with her so they can get ahead in their careers but outsiders in the other branches have gotta wonder, what are you talking about Tani?

Imagine you own a house with a lawn. You pay your teenage son an allowance to mow the lawn on Saturdays. That amount was set at $20 because it was a pretty big yard and it took 2 hours to do the work. Then you moved to a condo which still had a lawn but it was 30% smaller than the old lawn. The work only took an hour and a half to do now but nevertheless you still pay your son the same allowance of $20 as before and even gave him a raise of $5.00. The basic facts are your son now makes more money to do less work.

Then you overhear your son complaining to his friends that he is having to get by on an “ever shrinking allowance”. You of course still love your son but wouldn’t you be a little angry about his twisting of the basic facts. This is how I think the Governor and Legislature should feel towards the Chief but they don’t ever get mad. Absolutely no accountability as many posters have said previously. Fight on my friends!

“General Fund spending for the support of
the judicial branch in 2016-17 is estimated to be
$1.8 billion. Our forecast assumes that judicial
branch spending will be, on net, roughly the same
level in 2017-18.”

So funding is the SAME as last year despite the branch having nearly a million fewer cases coming in the door compared with just a year ago. I say that’s prety good considering the branch lost 11% of it’s workload in one year. Then the Legislative Analyst goes on to say court funding is actually projected to INCREASE to 1.9 Billion!

So I don’t know what Courthouse News is reporting saying the budget is not rosy for the courts. That is not at all what the Legislative Analyst report says is going to happen. The LAO is saying funding remains the SAME this year and may actually INCREASE from 1.8 billion to 1.9 billion yet this article makes it out like the courts are being underfunded. That is nuts!

The shame is this. Case filings used to be 7.5 million and now they are 6.8 million but it costs $0.1 billion more for CA Courts to do less work. That is $100 million dollars a year to do less work!

Today’s installment of Tani’s Follies. Get ready for yet another year of Judicial Branch administration crying poverty up in Sacramento. Published today, Thursday, November 17, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:

Rosy Budget Outlook for California — but Not Its Courts
November 17, 2016
By Maria Dinzeo

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — California’s trial courts face an uncertain fiscal outlook in the coming year, partly because of two voter-approved propositions, the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported Wednesday in its biannual budget forecast.

The independent analyst’s report is meant to give the governor and Legislature some idea of how much they can spend in fiscal year 2017-18, before Governor Jerry Brown releases his initial budget package in January. In its brief section on the judiciary, the LAO said Propositions 63 and 66 will likely increase operating costs for courts by tens of millions of dollars.

Proposition 63, which requires a person who wants to buy ammunition to pass a background check and obtain approval from the Department of Justice, could increase court workloads tremendously, as it creates a new court process to ensure the removal of firearms from people convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors.

Proposition 66 aims to hasten executions by limiting habeas corpus petitions and requiring death penalty appeals to be completed within five years of the death sentence. It also requires the judge in the original trial to hear the habeas corpus petition, rather than the California Supreme Court, unless good cause is shown for another court or judge to hear it. Judges also must explain their decisions to the state appellate courts before an appeal can be made to the state’s high court. The fiscal impact of the new law is uncertain, according to the LAO.

“Our forecast assumes that the full implementation of Proposition 63 and Proposition 66 will increase judicial branch costs over the forecast period in the high tens of millions of dollars annually,” the LAO report states.

While the law could result in fewer, shorter filings, it could also force courts to devote more time and resources to process legal challenges. Anita Lee with the LAO clarified the report’s assumptions Wednesday, saying the effects hinge on how courts carry out certain provisions of the new laws.

“The fiscal effects really strongly depend on how they’re implemented,” she said.
While the report projects that the courts will receive about $1.9 billion from the state’s general fund next year, assuming court spending to be at the same level as last year, Lee said the governor’s office and judiciary will likely begin discussions on how to adjust court funding to deal with the new laws.

For the rest of California, the LAO predicts an optimistic fiscal future, estimating that the state will end 2017-18 with a $2.8 billion surplus, despite revenues of $1.7 billion less than projected last year.

Assuming the state doesn’t go wild with new spending, California has enough in reserves to weather a mild recession.

“Our recession scenario shows that the state budget is much better prepared to weather a mild economic downturn with minimal disruptions to programs,” the report states. “However, the reserve balances displayed in this chapter assume the state makes no new budget commitments — whether spending increases or tax reductions.

“If the state were to make significant ongoing budget commitments in 2017–18 or later, reserve balances would be insufficient to cover operating deficits in a mild recession and the state could face much more difficult choices — such as reducing spending or increasing taxes — to balance the state budget.”

Observation of the day: “The independent analyst’s report is meant to give the governor and Legislature some idea of how much they can spend in fiscal year 2017-18, before Governor Jerry Brown releases his initial budget package in January. In its brief section on the judiciary, the LAO said Propositions 63 and 66 will likely increase operating costs for courts by tens of millions of dollars.”

As court filings have been consistently declining, the current judicial branch funding should be just fine to cover any increase in operating courts. Not to mention the fact that branch administration has repeatedly demonstrated that the last thing they can be trusted with is more money. But that isn’t likely to stop them from tripping all over themselves begging for “more money, more money, more money.”

K. So I have just finished another complaint to the USDOJ regarding…well, you know who. They promise me that they will expedite it — and this time they really, really mean it that they will investigate in good faith. Here’s my opening sentences. What do you think?

Lack of accountability for corruption and cronyism in government and retaliation of whistleblowers under the color of law, are the foremost problems plaguing this country today. The DOJ and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) are involved in a deadly organized crime with the toxicologists at XXXX, and leading officers of the California courts. KRAMER has falsified and backdated court documents from two fixed SLAPPS, an incarceration record for refusing to lie, and communications with the DOJ and CDC which prove it.

Today’s installment of Tani’s Follies. Those with nothing hide, hide nothing. Those with plenty to hide sue the state auditor. Published today, Tuesday, November 22, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:

State Auditor Presses Power to Review Judicial Discipline Agency
Cheryl Miller, The Recorder

SACRAMENTO — Lawyers for state Auditor Elaine Howle fired back this week at the Commission on Judicial Performance, arguing that the judicial disciplinary agency has no authority to limit her review of its operations.

The commission sued Howle last month, asking a San Francisco Superior Court judge to restrict the scope of her audit. The legislatively mandated review, commissioners said, would threaten the confidentiality of the agency’s investigations and violate the separation of powers doctrine. The judicial performance commission is part of the judicial branch; Howle’s office conducts some investigations on direction from the Legislature.

In her answer filed Monday, Howle’s attorneys said the auditor has reviewed “highly confidential” documents held by other agencies—including some in the judicial branch—without disclosing any contents publicly.

“The auditor regularly audits state agencies established by the Constitution, and never has an audit intruded on the ‘core functions’ of those agencies,” Myron Moskovitz of the Moskovitz Appellate Team wrote on Howle’s behalf. “None of these agencies has ever challenged, by lawsuit or other means, the auditor’s authority to conduct an audit or claimed the separation of powers doctrine prevents the auditor from informing the public about the agency’s performance.”

The Legislature approved the first-ever audit of the judicial commission in August amid a lobbying push from critics of the judicial agency who represent both sides of the spectrum. Judges say the agency’s disciplinary process is opaque and robs them of due process. Family law practitioners contend the agency doesn’t do enough to punish bad judges.

The investigation, as outlined by the auditor, will focus on 19 areas, including an assessment of how the judicial commission determines the credibility of evidence and an evaluation of how the agency reviews complaints about judges who commit legal errors.

In addition to challenging the planned audit, the commission’s attorneys said the agency could not afford the review’s estimated $500,000 cost without significant layoffs. Howle, in court papers, said she has no authority to charge the commission for the audit’s costs and she has no intention of doing so.

Ha! I cannot wait for those files to be audited. At the very least, it should cause several severe problem causers in the branch to retire. Filed a new complaint with the Department of Justice yesterday. It’s for CJP’s former chairwoman’s felony acts when case-fixing to commit organized crime to defraud the United States public.

Did you all read Auditor Howle’s reply to the CJP’s attempt to obstruct the auditing of their case files? It’s awesome!

While I know for a fact that there are compromised jurists who have not been properly admonished when they should have been and people have died from it — I highly suspect there are honest jurists who have been punished when they shouldn’t have been.

I cannot wait for this audit of bullies who have been allowed to abuse power for far too long, to commence in earnest.

“A California judge has rejected pimping charges against the operators of a major international website advertising escort services that the state attorney general has called the “world’s top online brothel.” Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman cites free speech laws in upholding the right of Backpage.com and its operators to publish. Bowman’s action Friday makes final a previous tentative ruling. California Attorney General Kamala Harris charged Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer and former owners Michael Lacey and James Larkin.”

I encourange you to read the above link but in summary it basically says the branch (as always) needs more money. What a surprise! Their sales pitch of course makes no mention of the fact that there are 30% fewer cases coming into courthouse doors today compared to FY 2009 or that the branch aleady receives hundreds of millions more in funding fromthe state to resolve far fewer cases.

Another day in CA government with little change. The JC Staff of course see their sales pitch to the legislature as “advocating” for the branch. Sort of like Lance Armstrong advocating for himself in a Nike comercial saying, “What am I on? I’m on my bike six hours a day. What are you on?” Lance was indeed on his bike six hours a day training but that did not mean he wasn’t at the exact same time doping heavily. See how this lying game works? Just get people to focus on the partial truth you want them to see.

I say it a complete distortion the facts for the JC to seek more money for the branch while caseloads are in free fall as they are and have been for five years in a row now. But what are you gonna do right? They have all the political power in the branch and JC members are all pretty much pawns of the Chief since she appoints every one of them.

My thought is to just relax and watch the Chief’s house of cards collapse. Lance was caught as a fraud in time and so too will these folks on the Judicial Council who just want to keep the gravy train of easy money going as long as possible.

Meanwhile, an actual technology change is indeed coming, way outside of the Chief’s control, that will in time wipe out the five million traffic “cases” per year. That loss of 5 million traffic tickets represents a 67% decline in the court’s caseload and it will be a permanent loss. This change will happen with self driving cars:

Will California need 1,500+ judges to handle the remaining 33% of court cases left? That remaining caseload is already shrinking as crime is down and so is juvenile filings plus the state prisons are full. The market and public are not on the side of paying for more prisons and don’t want to spend more money on criminal justice. Time is not on the Chief’s side either as every year the branch’s workload continues to decline. At some point the Legislature will want to hold the Chief accountable and may seek to spend money on other things. The only thing preventing them from doing so right now (based on the filing data) is the power of the Chief. I believe that though the Supreme Court the Chief can play hard ball to threaten to block their key projects unless the CA Courts are funded to the level she expects. Okham’s razor suggests this is what is going on just as it suggested Lance was doping.

My view is CA Court funding is supposed to be based on caseload alone but it now based on caseload plus a corruption figure the Chief extorts for the branch. Time will tell if I am right just as time showed David Walsh was right all along about Lance Armstrong.

Quote of the Day: “Everything’s going swimmingly,” said Kelso’s spokesperson, Joyce Hayhoe. Hilarity ensues. Read below for more stunningly stupid utterances that tumble from the mouths of ignoramuses. Clowns have now risen to all levels of power.

FOLSOM, Sacramento County — A huge project to modernize medical record-keeping for California prison inmates has more than doubled in cost from original estimates to nearly $400 million in just three years, the latest in a long string of computer projects that have befuddled state government.

The federal court-appointed receiver who controls California’s inmate health care system approved the project in 2013 to replace the state’s antiquated paper-based records with an electronic system that can track the medical and mental health care of nearly 130,000 inmates.

But a year of delays means it now won’t be installed at all 35 prisons until the end of 2017, and inmate advocates are so concerned that they may seek to push it back even longer at some troubled prisons.

The cost ballooned from the original $182 million projection to $386.5 million, in part because the first estimate left out basics like the cost of maintaining the system and replacing worn-out equipment, according to documents reviewed by the Associated Press.

The receiver, J. Clark Kelso, said his office also failed to anticipate needing $13 million worth of mobile devices — 16,800 laptops, dictation machines and other gear. Nor did it include the extra software required for things as fundamental as incorporating inmates’ requests to see doctors.

Authorities last year added dental records to the system, and the latest estimate includes three additional years of operation.

“The more charitable description is we learned as we went along,” Kelso said in an interview. “We started out with as cheap a system as we thought we could use, and then along the way there were some things that we decided, ‘You know, we absolutely need these, it turns out.’”

The biggest problem was a pharmaceutical records system so complex that it turned out to be “damn near unusable” when it was tested last winter at three prisons, Kelso said: “The thing wasn’t designed, implemented properly.”

He brought in a new pharmacy chief in February and “told him his No. 1 job is to fix this.”

The drug-tracking system is working now, bringing benefits like automatically warning doctors when certain combinations of prescriptions could prove harmful, Kelso said.

Officials have discovered other issues along the way, including a major hurdle: Employees struggle to learn the new record-keeping system. Kelso had to slow down implementing the computer system in other prisons and intensify the training.

Physicians don’t like that the new system forces them to do more time-consuming data entry that they used to delegate to nurses, Kelso said, though he expects them to eventually adapt.

The system has been installed at eight additional prisons since August.

Yet, doctors who tested the system still are seeing about one-third fewer patients a year later, potentially leading to backlogs and poor treatment, said Steven Fama, an attorney with the nonprofit Prison Law Office that sued to force health care improvements.

As a result, the lawyers are considering asking Kelso to delay installing the new system at as many as nine prisons next year. Those prisons “have big problems already,” Fama said. “You put a new record (keeping system) in there, it just slashes their ability to see people timely.”

Doctor productivity has improved at the three test prisons since last year, while the number of patients waiting for care has decreased over time, Hayhoe said. Patient care hasn’t appeared to suffer, she added.

In court and budget filings, Kelso’s office largely blamed problems with the medical records system on the contractor, Cerner Corp., which is being paid $177 million over the project’s 11-year life. But Kelso said much of the fault lies with his office. Cerner spokeswoman Maile Bennett declined to comment.

Many of the extra costs have been absorbed in the receiver’s budget, which was nearly doubled to $1.9 billion since the federal judge seized control of California’s prison medical system a decade ago.

However, the state general fund also devotes nearly $36 million to the prison project this year. That’s more in one year than the $28 million spent over a decade by the California Department of Veterans Affairs to develop a record-keeping system that the state auditor criticized in June as an expensive failure.

Lawmakers said the state has little choice but to complete the prison records system, even as they fretted over the escalating cost.

“It is of great concern,” said former state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, who chaired two prison oversight committees before her tenure ended in December. “It isn’t just this. It’s the judicial system that had to be abandoned because the costs were spiraling out of control and nothing was getting done, plus other departments in the state. It’s an ongoing problem.”

The state Judicial Council halted a statewide case management system in 2012 after auditors said the original $260 million cost estimate could balloon to $1.9 billion.

Kelso said his initial estimate was low partly because he pushed “to spend as little money as possible, in part because I know that these systems can become billion-dollar systems if you’re not careful.”

“SO those (like us) who follow the machinations of the judicial branch know how they just LOVE to throw their weight around… Just before the JLAC vote on Aug. 10th to audit the CJP for the first time in 56 years, a JLAC Committee member moved to reappoint the Auditor, but the chair, Asm. Rodriguez, called a recess. They came back and Rodriguez refused to allow the reappointment. We knew that something very political was afoot that day….”

(which I could post the entire article)

State auditor facing tests in the state Legislature
By Malcolm Maclachlan
Daily Journal Staff Writer
Monday, December 12, 2016

The state auditor, who investigated the State Bar and is looking into the Commission on Judicial Performance, has herself come under the scrutiny of an influential legislator.
The chair of the powerful Legislative committee that can order the auditor to investigate government agencies recently posted ads seeking outside candidates to apply for the position that State Auditor Elaine Howle has held for the past 16 years.

In January, Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez, D-Pomona, plans to break from recent tradition by submitting the names of two qualified outside candidates to the other members of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC).

If the committee approves the nominations, these names will be sent along with Howle’s to Gov. Jerry Brown, who will then choose an auditor to serve the next four-year term. Rodriguez became JLAC chair in March….

The auditor regularly reviews spending by judicial branch, from county courts up through the Judicial Council and the state Supreme Court. Under Howle’s watch, the auditor has also issued several reports critical of the State Bar.

In October, the CJP sued the auditor’s office in San Francisco County Superior Court….JLAC voted to order the CJP audit in August at the request of several powerful legislators…..

Rodriguez’s office confirmed they have chosen two outside candidates to submit to JLAC to nominate next month, along with Howle….

A spokeswoman for the auditor’s office declined to comment. Rodriguez’s office did not comment on the record by press time.

Given what a good job Ms. Howle has done to bring areas in need of improvement in the JC/AOC and State Bar to light; and given how hard the CJP is working to obstruct having the records/methods evaluated that they use when determining which judges are admonished and which are not; the timing of potential replacement of Ms. Howle gives the strong appearance of someone lobbying legislators so the CJP can avoid a real audit of how they really work.

Given that the CJA supported the need for audit; and given that the ACJ just gave an award to a recently CJP admonished judge; it doesn’t seem likely that the judges themselves are seeking replacement of Ms. Howle.

How sad what a graveyard JCW has become lately. For quite a while, actually. But I understand that, at this point, most of the regular posters have either escaped this nightmare, either by retirement or by choice, or moved on to other causes where they believe their energies could actually have an impact, or have just plain thrown in the towel and checked out completely. I love and appreciate you all. Thanks for the memories.

A bunch of us are just sitting here waiting, along with Rip Van Winkle, for the audit of the Judicial Branch Court Construction and Facilities Maintenance programs. You know, the one that was supposed to happen like 3 years ago. As should be obvious by now, pigs will fly and hell will freeze over – at the same time – before that ever happens.

For at least that last 9 years, anyone and everyone in a position of authority who could do something – anything – about fraud, corruption, and misappropriation of public funds in the administration of the California Judicial Branch has ultimately done nothing but turn a blind eye or run away as fast as they can in the opposite direction. Those of us down in the here in the trenches getting slaughtered have gotten the message: don’t report anything, keep your mouth shut, and don’t care, because no one will do anything about it and it will be you who will be punished for telling the truth.

There is absolutely no reason to believe, or even hope, that 2017 will be any different.

Though we’ve split our resources to work on ourrevolution.com and brandnewcongress.org, you’ll be seeing an uptick here at JCW as the AOC INTENTIONALLY LOST their lawsuit and that created another ten years of base funding for this project.

“MORE THAN A year after the initial request for intervention was made, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division on December 15 announced that it would initiate an investigation of the still unfolding jailhouse snitch scandal that has embroiled Orange County, California….“The Court of Appeal stated that the ‘magnitude of the systemic problems [in OCDA and OCSD] cannot be overlooked,’” Sanders wrote in an email to The Intercept. “It is hoped that the Justice Department’s probe will help reform the system so that all Orange County residents will receive the constitutional protections to which they are entitled.”

Thank you for your valiant efforts to repair our (in) justice system. Our Santa Barbara representative, Hannah Beth Jackson, cosponsored the bill to audit the Judicial Council and I certainly hope Governor Brown chooses the strongest, smartest, and toughest truth advocate for the job.
I’ve been helping a 90 year old woman and her disabled son navigate the legal system here in Santa Barbara and although we have all the proper documentation, attorney, nursing and MD reports, competency assessments, and neighbor and friend declarations, the court and her other adult children still stole the 90 year old away from her loving caring home claiming she was going to visit her grandkids then sticking her against her will into a locked facility eight hours away.
We first went to court with two days notice to attend an “Ex Parte” hearing where her kids, other than the one she was living with, were trying to force her back into a nursing home. She had begged to be picked up and her son and I had helped her move home legally because her health there was suffering greatly due to unnecessary medications, boredom and loneliness. Her son had finally recovered enough to fully take care of her. He had been hit by a texting driver and had had 8 surgeries in five years.
Right at the beginning of this unrecorded, untranscripted kangaroo court, the Judge said “Isla Vista is a terrible place for seniors to live, she could go running down the street naked to a keg party.” But the Judge wasn’t making a joke, the 90 year old or her last minute attorney never were property introduced to the Judge, and then the Judge proceeded to trounce all over the senior’s rights, not even allowing her her own attorney who was out of town.
Weekly 8:30am hearings featured petitions filled with lies and omissions. Our lawyers weren’t allowed to speak and didn’t introduce any of the rebuttals and evidence collected because they said the Judge doesn’t read any of it,
The Judge forced the 90 year old to go back to her negligent doctor who had prescribed her countless unneeded and harmful medications that had left her swollen, with skin lesions, intestinally upset, forgetful and with severe fatigue. In just one week, when the 90 year old took herself off all the medications her health and mental faculties dramatically improved. In fact when she went to the local doctor of the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, she reported the 90 year old extremely healthy, needing no medication and having no chronic conditions!
But I guess the Judge thought she knew better than the professional teaching doctor, and she wouldn’t even allow our other expert witness MD to speak in the 90 year old’s defense who was her family doctor for years and even was a Medicare administrator.
Even worse, I was attacked, assaulted and battered in the courtroom that first day. The bailiff turns out, did not arrest the man, as I assumed he did when I flailed and motioned for help. The attacker was the out of town son of the 90 yo woman I was caregiving, and one of the ones suing her. The Bailiff later called me and I thought he was going to tell me that they were arresting the perpetrator because the Bailiff claimed he saw the tapes.
The same tapes I had formally requested from Admin but was told they were erased. Instead, the Bailiff threateningly and intimidatingly told me on my personal phone number he must have gotten off my police report, that I was the aggressor and I had pushed the 6′ 285# man. I told him no, that was wrong, look again at the tapes. I filed a prompt and accurate report and I’m a peace activist and caregiver and have never hurt anyone. He said he was charging me with filing a false police report. I said I don’t think that will happen, but it did, the DA is charging me as a criminal now, contrary to the Welfare and Institutions Code. What corruption I cannot believe is happening.
This out of towner, the 90 year old’s son, my attacker, I discovered through my research, worked for none other than Sacramento Family Court Judge (chainsaw) Peter McBrien. He was the chainsaw in fact, Titan Tree Company, who cut down the glen of 80 year old, 50′ tall protected oak trees in a nature preserve so the Judge could have a view of the American river and his home could be worth over $100,000 more. They were caught and cited for felony vandalism but guess what, the Judge got them off with a puny fine.
So do some of the California Judges collude in a rather incestuous way? The ones appointed by Schwarzenegger? Seems I saw this Judge McBrien, or a dead ringer, leave the Dept. 5 Judge’s chambers just three days before our most recent hearing. The out of town son called and left another nasty message saying they would be picking up their mom’s belongings, no mention of her “visit” with her grandkids. Sure enough, that was the decision made at court, with no allowance for our lawyer to talk, and no agreement by the Judge to issue a protective order requested by our lawyer so I would be safe.
I helped load the 90 year old’s belongings into the driveway and the out of town son said “I hug them before I kill them. ” I hope he was talking about the trees. But on New Year’s Eve, I got a call from a “No Caller ID” number. It was a death threat, a guy called me and said ” do you know who this is?”, “we miss you”, and “do you know what time it is?” I replied no, and it’s almost the future, then he said “I’m gonna slit your $&@%ing throat you bit#%!”
This makes me even more determined to help “drain the swamp”, help the disabled son and and save his 90 year old mother’s life and now maybe even my own life too! Happy New Year, please let or make truth and justice reign!

“From the you-can’t-make-up-this-crap file,” public officials are paying a private law firm specializing in defending cops in excessive force lawsuits, untold sums to claim public officials couldn’t have “clearly” known that dishonesty wasn’t acceptable in court and, as a back up, even if they did know, they should enjoy immunity for their misdeeds because they were government employees.

“and the reason this had to go to federal court is…..why????”

Because in federal court there was at least a shot the federal court wouldn’t validate a beyond-the-pale claim public officers didn’t know lying in court was wrong, and even “if” they did know it was wrong, they have immunity due to their positions as public officials.

If this was being heard in a state court here in California, this defense would have more than likely been given a double green light and a full-speed free pass, if for no other reason than public officials at 455 Golden Gate Avenue, including state judges, have been, and continue to, engage in this exact same behavior, with impunity, including paying untold sums to private law firms, such as Wiley, Price & Whatever Your Calling Yourself Now, to defend/cover-up that behavior on the very same defense(s).

“Transparency and judicial independence are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the sentencing history of a fair and consistent judge would shield him or her from public attack on a single case. Red flags would only be raised if patterns of bias emerged over time or if a judge were to become an outlier when compared to peers. In such instances, an oversight agency should intervene to correct the problem and voters should be able to exercise their right at the ballot box to hold a wayward judge accountable…..Many states have put measures in place to aid the assessment of bias…..California has not implemented any of these practices.”

What THAT was certainly an interesting day at Chrystal Palace South aka 750 B Street, San Diego, Symphony Towers 4th/1st Appellate Court. Did you all know that the following two words are knee slapping hysterical? “harmless error”